Slayings decline in suburbs

DuPage, Kane see less violence

DuPage County reported four murders in 2003, the county's second-lowest yearly total in recent history.

Neighboring Kane County had 19 homicides, which was a decrease from 23 the previous year. All but five of those deaths were in Aurora, whose police chief credited a crackdown on gangs with a seemingly dramatic reduction in gang-related deaths.

Domestic violence was involved in three of the DuPage killings. An Oak Park man was stabbed outside his former girlfriend's Addison apartment, and the current boyfriend was charged; a Glen Ellyn woman was killed in her apartment, and her former boyfriend was charged; and a Downers Grove woman was strangled by her husband, who then committed suicide.

The other murder was in May at a West Chicago party in which two brothers are accused of participating in the shooting of a rival gang member.

DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Birkett has praised local police efforts in reducing serious crime. He said that if the murder rate in DuPage County, with almost a million residents, mirrored the nation's, the county would have about 80 homicides a year.

The only recent year with fewer homicides was 2000, when only a single murder was recorded in DuPage. In 2002, there were 9 murders, 10 in 2001 and 11 in 1999.

Compared with DuPage, number continue to be much higher in Kane County, although the drop in Aurora homicides to 14 in 2003 from 25 in 2002 indicates overall violence was on the wane.

Gang violence led to four homicides in 2003, compared with as many as 15 the year before, police said. And shooting incidents, which totaled 199 as of Sept. 30, 2002, dropped nearly 30 percent to 140 in the first nine months of 2003, according to the most recent police statistics.

Aurora's Deputy Police Chief Byron Saum said he is reluctant to draw conclusions from a single year's data, but added that he believes ongoing federal and local crackdowns on gangs that started in November 2001, as well as crime prevention initiatives, have made a difference.

To date, 54 people, most of whom are alleged gang members, have been arrested in the crackdowns, which targeted two street gangs involved in the illegal drug trade.

"When you take those people off the streets who are committing the violence, that's the most effective way of preventing further violence," Saum said.

In the aftermath of the first crackdowns in late 2001 and early 2002, shootings and murders in Aurora surged. Police speculated then that ensuing turmoil among gangs over leadership and drug turf might have led to the high homicide tally of 2002.

Saum said he believes programs designed to prevent violence, like the Aurora Cares program established in 1997--along with stepped up community-oriented policing programs, school anti-violence programs, social services and additional youth activities--are "bound to have an impact over time."

And he also noted that citizens have stepped forward in several cases to help police solve homicides in 2003, when police arrested 15 people in nine homicides.

In addition to the four likely gang-related cases, five people were killed because of personal disputes and three slayings were attributed to domestic disputes. A cabdriver died in a robbery attempt, and police have been unable to determine a motive in one homicide.

Linda Holmes, an Aurora activist, said that while she is encouraged by the decline in gang homicides, she is taking a wait-and-see view of the overall decline in violence.

"I think it's too early to tell," she said. "I'm wondering whether it was things they did or whether it was part of the cycle. It needs a longer trial period."

Saum basically agreed, saying there could be another increase in violence, and that is why long-term approaches involving social services and schools are important.

Elsewhere in Kane County, Elgin had three homicides, the same number as the previous year. Carpentersville had two, and St. Charles, West Dundee, Montgomery and unincorporated Aurora Township each counted one.

The murder in Montgomery, the July 9 shooting of Juan Carlos Rodriguez, 22, of Oswego, was the first in that village in five years, authorities said.

Kane's 19 homicides do not include four Aurora cases in which the victims died after being taken to out-of-county hospitals and one Elgin case that occurred in the Cook County portion of that city.

DuPage numbers do not include the December death of a 2-year-old Glen Ellyn boy, Noah Cichorski, which is under police investigation.

Also not listed is the Nov. 17 death of Patrick Switzer, 44, of South Elgin, who was fatally shot by West Chicago police after he charged officers with a knife.